


Unspoken

by doomedship



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23527777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedship/pseuds/doomedship
Summary: Claire needs to see for herself that Neil's okay after the earthquake.
Relationships: Claire Browne/Neil Melendez
Comments: 15
Kudos: 91





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work based on a lovely prompt by Shadow375 - I'm sorry it came out so short! I hope I did it at least some justice.

i.

She thought dying would be prettier in her dreams. 

In her waking hours she's been a doctor long enough to know that no matter what they say about a good death it's always ugly. It's the body shutting down, losing its fight with a grimace of pain, the fear of what's to come closing in until that's it, there's nothing of you left behind. 

She just thought it would be different in her head. 

She sees him lying there in the hospital bed, IV pumping meds that won't do anything. She sees him looking up at her with goodbye in his eyes and all the things she'll never have a chance to say to him dying in her throat like swallowing fire. His skin is grey, his face clammy, contorted with pain as he struggles to breathe.

She sees the final, horrible moments, of his body wracked with agony, of the fog sweeping through his mind until he doesn't know her anymore. His last, anguished words.

She sees his death, and with it she sees hers. 

She wakes up gasping, with tears fresh on her cheeks. 

  
ii.

She gets in the car like it's normal to do that at one thirty in the morning after you've spent the night delivering first response care to trauma victims. 

She's kidding herself if she thinks she's just going for a drive; she's on the way to his place before she can even really process that fact. 

Her brain won't stop saying what if and every time she shuts her eyes she sees him dying and everyone around him saying _there's nothing we can do_. Giving up on him, like he doesn't deserve to live.

The need to see him is non-negotiable. 

He was injured, but not seriously. He walked away, scratched up but still standing, no sign of confusion or collapse. Scans proved him right about his head, and her overcautious about his side, where a knock is just a knock.

But things can change, and in her mind that fresh-cut bruise unfurls out in violent red, spreading like a poison within. 

She gets out of her car. 

"Hi," she whispers, on his doorstep at one thirty-nine. 

  
iii.

He's surprised, she can tell, then concerned. 

He reaches for her, all wide-eyed confusion and gentle kindness, and he ushers her into the warmth with a hand on the small of her back. 

"What's wrong?" he asks, and the softness in his voice is all it takes to break her. 

She crumples, and he reacts. 

Arms around her, no hesitation, a soothing murmur in the back of his throat as he pulls her in. He doesn't know why she's here, doesn't know how much she needs him to be okay, but he's holding her like he does. 

"I saw you die," she whispers, and his brow furrows as he leans back to look at her. 

"I'm not going anywhere," he murmurs back, trademark smile creasing his face as he strokes her back. "I'm okay, Claire. The doctor I saw was very thorough."

She chokes on a laugh, but somehow she can't stop crying. 

He holds her for as long as it takes, and she breathes in the scent of a man who is this alive. 

  
iv.

He doesn't let her drive back home. 

Not tonight, he says, in a voice that brokers no argument. She puts up no resistance, because she knows if she goes home all that waits for her are visions of his lifeless body in a world where he couldn't be saved. 

It occurs to her later when he passes her a shirt of his to sleep in and takes her hand so that she follows him to bed that maybe he doesn't want to be alone either. 

No questions asked, she curls against him in his bed, craving his warmth like she's been out lost in the cold, and she rests her hand over his heart so she can feel the steady thrum beneath her fingertips. 

He has an arm around her shoulders, the other on the hand that's resting on his chest, his thumb working in absent circles on her wrist. 

They don't say I love you that night, but it's pretty obvious what they mean. 

  
v.

She wakes up from confusing dreams, but at least this time he's not dead.

She pushes up his shirt while he's still half asleep and ignores his mumbled protest as she checks for herself that all his blood and vital organs are still where they're meant to be. He grumbles, and pulls her back down into his arms, and she lets her heart rate slow against the solid plane of his chest.

They split and go to work in separate cars, and she's okay with it because she can still smell him on her skin like how the freshness lingers in the air after it rains. 

Slowly she starts to believe he might just be fine, might not be about to leave her like everybody else always has. 

"About last night," he says, after work when they're alone in the locker room and his eyes are deep and unfathomable. 

She freezes, looking up at him and dreading the axe to fall. 

"Life's short," he says quietly. "Come back with me tonight?"

And they still don't say I love you, but she knows just what they mean.


End file.
